Three Colours: Blue

Three Colours: Blue
French theatrical release poster
FrenchTrois couleurs: Bleu
Directed byKrzysztof Kieślowski
Written by
Produced byMarin Karmitz
Starring
CinematographySławomir Idziak
Edited byJacques Witta
Music byZbigniew Preisner
Production
companies
Distributed by
  • mk2 Diffusion (France)
  • Rialto Film (Switzerland)
Release dates
  • 8 September 1993 (1993-09-08) (France/Switzerland)
  • 10 October 1993 (1993-10-10) (Warsaw)
Running time
94 minutes
Countries
  • France
  • Poland
  • Switzerland
LanguageFrench
Box office$1.3 million[1]
(United States)

Three Colours: Blue (French: Trois couleurs: Bleu, Polish: Trzy kolory: Niebieski) is a 1993 psychological drama film directed and co-written by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski. It is the first of three films that make up the Three Colours trilogy, themed on the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, followed by White and Red. According to Kieślowski, the subject of the film is liberty, specifically emotional liberty, rather than its social or political meaning.[2]

Set in Paris, the film follows a woman whose husband and child are killed in a car accident. Suddenly freed from her familial bonds, she tries to isolate herself and live in seclusion from her former ties. However, she discovers that she cannot escape human connections.[3]

Upon its release, Blue received widespread critical acclaim and won several accolades, including the Golden Lion and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. It remains one of Kieślowski's most celebrated works.[4][5] The male lead, Benoît Régent, suddenly died of an aneurysm at the age of 41 in October 1994, just one year after the film was released.[6]

  1. ^ "Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993)". JPBox Office. Retrieved 2017-05-01.
  2. ^ Insdorf, Anne, et al. "A Look at Blue". (Featurette) DVD. The Criterion Collection. Three Colors: Blue. November 15, 2011.
  3. ^ Kieślowski, Krzysztof. Kieślowski on Kieślowski. Edited by Danusia Stok. London: Faber and Faber, 1998, p. 212.
  4. ^ "Krzysztof Kieslowski's Acclaimed Films". They Shoot Pictures, Don't They. Archived from the original on July 8, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  5. ^ "Votes for Three Colours Blue (1993)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on February 24, 2017. Retrieved October 17, 2016.
  6. ^ "THEATRE Mort de l'acteur Benoît Régent Un blond fait pour la nuit". Le Monde.fr. 25 October 1994.